Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 72 The Zahar noblewoman emerged from Meisa's room, but instead of leaving the mansion, she headed straight for the drawing room on the first floor.
The elderly maids, now far more animated than before, greeted her warmly.
"Oh my, why are you out so soon? Didn't you stay to chat?"
"She was fast asleep. I just left the book she was looking for and came out."
"But the sun hasn't even set yet…"
"It feels like she's been doing nothing but sleeping lately."
"It's because she's not feeling well. She needs to eat something to recover her strength."
"We can't exactly force-feed her if she doesn't want to eat, now can we?"
The women chattered away, completely unaware that Turan was standing right behind them, concealed by his magic.
Thanks to their gossip, he easily discovered that the noblewoman's alias was 'Leto' and that she was, incredibly, a personal maid directly serving the Arabion House Head.
It was shocking enough that a noble of the Zahar bloodline was inside the Arabion main estate, but to be the House Head's personal maid?
How is that even possible?
Usually, the servants of a main estate were drawn from the families of knights and raised strictly from childhood. Given that nobles aged slowly, it should have been nearly impossible to maintain a commoner's disguise for a long period.
He wondered if she was using a concealment artifact similar to his own, but even with the senses of his Mimic Relic, he felt nothing.
Either she's disguised through some ingenious method, or… Arabion has been keeping a Zahar noble of their own.
To nobles, bloodline abilities were like a fence. They defined who was kin—those with the same power—and who was an outsider—those with different powers.
Religious and political elements were intertwined with this. Since noble bloodline abilities were originally bestowed by the gods, their very power symbolized their authority as descendants of the divine. For this reason, nobles strictly organized their families around those with the same bloodline abilities.
Of course, since consanguineous marriage between cousins was rejected, they often brought in outside bloodlines. Even then, if a child's bloodline differed from the family's, they could not remain within that house.
For example, if the head of an Enchanter family married a noble of a Healer bloodline and their child turned out to be a Healer, that child had to be sent away for adoption into a Healer family, regardless of being the House Head's offspring.
Violating these rules by claiming and employing a noble of a different bloodline was known as 'Bloodline Theft,' and it was treated with the same severity as robbery or murder committed for mana.
But then again, taboos and rules only existed because there were people who broke them.
Perhaps Arabion had been grooming Zahar nobles for quite some time. However, he wasn't at a stage where he could be certain which of the two possibilities it was.
While he was lost in thought, the women finished their chatter, and Leto stepped out of the mansion. Turan intended to follow her while remaining concealed, but he had to stop before long.
The place she was heading toward was the House Head's residence, located right next door.
Following her inside there is… probably a bad idea.
Meisa's residence was strangely poorly guarded, but the House Head's residence was likely protected by its own set of defenses. While he was confident in his ability to escape from almost anyone, he had to avoid a direct confrontation with the House Head. The moment someone of that caliber decided to attack, Turan would likely be killed instantly before he could even try any tricks.
Turan gave up on following her further. Instead, he surreptitiously snatched a strand of hair that had been clinging to Leto's maid uniform. Just in case it was a wig or someone else's hair, he even used tracking magic to confirm it belonged to her.
Good. With this, I can track her down no matter where she runs.
The principle of tracking magic involved specifying a target and using enhanced senses to capture anything matching that condition. The more precise the condition, the wider the range one could search with less mana. Finding a master through a part of their body was one of the most efficient tracking conditions.
In other words, with this single strand of hair, Turan could now find and pursue his target even if she were thousands of kilometers away. There was a reason people feared the tracking abilities of the Zahar.
Having secured a way to track Leto, Turan let her go and returned to Meisa's room to open the book. Contrary to his expectation that it might contain important family secrets, it was nothing more than an ordinary book of fairy tales.
The Woodcutter and the Axe, The Frog Prince, The Star Child—
I know all of these.
They were all stories his mother, Vizella, had told him at bedtime when he was a child. Come to think of it, it was only natural that the fairy tales known to the daughter of an Arabion knight would originate from this region.
He scanned the pages several times to see if there were any hidden codes, but there seemed to be nothing special. Then again, if there were a code so simple that a layman like Turan could easily recognize it, it wouldn't be much of a code at all.
After indulging in old memories while reading the fairy tales, Turan eventually snapped out of it, closed the book, and looked back at Meisa.
Did she just want to read fairy tales?
Unfortunately, he couldn't get an answer from the sleeping girl, so Turan left the room and began patrolling the mansion again.
He was looking for a place to use as a base, but he soon confirmed that every room up to the fifth floor was wide open and empty, just like the first floor. Even the attic, common in such mansions, had rotting floorboards that left the interior exposed.
Turan realized it was impossible to stay in this mansion as a base.
If they made the mansion like this to prevent Zahar nobles from infiltrating, it's surprisingly effective…
Stealth magic couldn't be maintained forever; he would eventually have to deactivate it and rest, but that was impossible here. If he so much as tossed or turned, the half-rotten wooden planks would creak, and there were holes everywhere in the walls and floors that would fail to mask the noise.
If he snored, a noble's hearing would surely pick it up even from the first floor.
The only way to rest would be to reveal himself to Meisa and share her room, but he had found too little information here for that. He needed to find at least some evidence that Arabion was up to something, similar to Solif, before he could persuade Meisa.
*
Leaving the mansion, Turan wandered in search of a place to use as a temporary lodging, using both stealth and flight magic.
Though mana lamps cast light onto the streets, the illumination was only enough to chase away the darkness, making it easy to maintain his stealth from the sky. After a few minutes of roaming while scanning the people below with his Mimic Relic's senses, he spotted a family of four walking in the distance.
He felt mana equivalent to a high-ranking noble emanating from one of them.
"Today's performance was really fun, Father!"
"I didn't care for it…"
"Oh, stop it. You were crying earlier, Dora."
"I was not!"
"Don't be so embarrassed. It's okay to cry if something is moving."
The face of the middle-aged noble, chatting warmly with those who appeared to be his wife and children, was familiar. Was his name Kadram?
Turan remembered him as the man who had served as the vice-commander of Arabion's Dark Elf Subjugation squad. He recalled Keorn mentioning that Kadram was the House Head's half-brother and one of his trusted confidants. Turan figured he might find some decent information in such a person's home.
Given the opponent's level of martial prowess, Turan was confident he could escape or subdue them even if an alarm were triggered.
After confirming that Kadram's family had entered their mansion, Turan maintained his stealth magic and used psychokinesis to pick the lock of a window near the roof. It appeared to be a rarely used attic, but it was much cleaner than Meisa's residence. It seemed that keeping the interior like a ruin wasn't a general preference of Arabion nobles, but rather Meisa's personal quirk.
Turan deactivated his stealth magic, took off his mask, and let out a deep sigh.
"Whew…"
As his slowly depleting mana began to recover, fatigue washed over him. He was confident in his ability to escape as long as he wasn't caught right in front of the House Head, but he couldn't help but feel the pressure of infiltrating the stronghold of a Great House.
Turan took out the Mimic Relic, absorbed a small amount of mana from a Barrier Master bloodline, and set up barriers on the attic door and windows. Based on the dust accumulated here, it didn't seem like anyone would be coming by for a while, but it was a precaution for any unforeseen circumstances.
After securing his safe zone, he took a light nap for a few hours.
Having relieved his fatigue and recovered his mana, Turan confirmed that the only people awake in the mansion were a couple of servants on night watch and immediately began his exploration.
Naturally, his target was Kadram's study. The easiest place to find a person's private secrets in a house was always the place where they kept all their documents.
Fortunately, he didn't have to search the entire sprawling mansion to find it; he could feel that a room in the corner of the second floor was heavily locked with a magic device. If it wasn't a study, why would it be guarded more strictly than a bedroom?
This is nothing.
Kadram might have thought he'd secured it thoroughly, but such security systems were nothing before the Mimic Relic.
Turan checked the flow of the magic device sealing the study entrance and then found a matching key in Kadram's bedroom. Kadram, who had fallen asleep after an intimate night with his wife, didn't even notice an intruder had entered his room.
I'm realizing this again, but the interior security is really lax. I wonder if this is okay…
Turan had only gotten in quickly because his mask saved him time; in reality, other Zahar nobles could probably infiltrate by disguising themselves as servants if they put in the time and effort. That woman he saw earlier might have used such a method as well.
If someone decided to go on a massacre in this state, how on earth did they plan to respond when they were this defenseless?
Tsk-tsking at Arabion's poor security system, Turan entered the study and found a desk, about ten bookshelves, and numerous books and documents packed tightly together. It was time to see if the information he wanted was in here.
Let's see.
As expected, the documents laid out on the desk weren't very substantial. They were mostly approval forms regarding the distribution of goods within Morgen City. Considering that nobles usually weren't interested in such things, Kadram was likely just acting as a rubber stamp.
Turan neatly reorganized the documents and then pulled out the papers on the bookshelves one by one to check them before sliding them back in.
This was a general education book, this was a religious text, this was the genealogy of Arabion nobles…
Ah.
After a few minutes of searching, what caught Turan's eye was the report on the recent Dark Elf Subjugation.
The first page was about importing large timber at a low price from the reclamation site near the Western Forest Zone. A few pages later, he found information about himself. He was described as a contributor to the Dark Elf Subjugation and a mysterious noble whom Meisa was particularly looking after.
On the next page, there was a document containing Turan's personal details, presumably to supplement that information.
Oh…
It included a portrait drawn with magic that looked remarkably like him, as well as a summary of his past actions. In essence, these few pages summarized how Arabion viewed Turan.
[Subject: Unknown Noble]
• Bloodline: Barrier Master (Parents unknown).
• Specialty: Sling-based projectile combat.
• Combat Power: 4.
• History: Rescued Asiz of the Berk family from Dark Elves; stayed as a guest and established a friendship with the runaway heir.
• Note: The recent Dark Elf invasion is presumed to be retaliation for the Dark Elves killed during that battle.
• Current Status: Ruling an ownerless city in Kalamaf within the Gray Zone.
• Assets: Controls a Golden Eagle magical beast through soul binding. The fact that he had handed Kalamaf over to another family and left wasn't recorded, likely because the latest information hadn't been reflected yet. Turan could travel back and forth in a day or two on Bije, but for an ordinary person, the journey alone would take months.
In the meantime, the absence of any mention of Hisaril Hill suggested that Keorn really hadn't told the Arabion upper echelon anything about Turan.
As Turan read through the text, his face darkened when he saw the section at the very bottom. Judging by the fact that there were at least three different styles of handwriting, it seemed this document had been written by several people passing it around like a letter.
— Recent Status: Returned to the Berk family and attempted to contact the heir. Excessive friendship is a concern. Removal requested.
— The noble's combat power is at least 7. Cannot be easily removed.
— Leto?
— Excessive. For now, block the letters and monitor the reaction.
— Remember when the heir was broken.
— Why did the combat power jump from 4 to 7 in less than half a year? Requesting error check.
Leto, the name of the Zahar noblewoman he had seen earlier…
Seeing this, Turan could tell that she belonged to the Arabion side, or at least that the Arabion high-ranking officials were aware of her existence. They were wary of him becoming too close to Meisa and had considered sending a Zahar noble to assassinate him!
I sent that letter three weeks ago. I almost had to fight a Zahar assassin.
Turan had never encountered a Zahar noble using stealth abilities before, so he didn't know if he could see through that ability with the Mimic Relic. If he could, the fight would be laughably easy, but if he couldn't, he couldn't afford to be careless even against a weak enemy. No matter what defensive measures he had, including guardian magic tools, a knife to a vital point while sleeping would be fatal.
More importantly, what did they mean by 'remember when the heir was broken'?
He felt he needed more information to understand the details, so Turan first put the documents back as they were, making sure to remember their location. Now that he knew where they were, he could come back and take them later if necessary.
Besides, I doubt this guy is the only one who would look into something like this.
Didn't this mean there were at least three high-ranking nobles with the authority to command Zahar nobles? Whether the House Head was among them or not, he didn't know, but since no one knew he had infiltrated this place yet, he had plenty of time.
The subsequent search for documents was, as expected, quite tedious. Even though most were administrative documents, he had to read them all on the off chance that something meaningful might turn up.
Then, an old piece of stationery fluttered out from between some books. Turan carefully unfolded it, making sure the paper didn't crumble.
To my Uncle,
>
Life here in the Nagin family is quite idle. My relatives on my mother's side are all strangers, so things are a bit awkward. I have no choice but to take my time and get to know them.
>
Sirel keeps saying he's doing well, but his letters often seem insincere. I'd like you to check if he's skipping his studies.
>
Also, Meisa suddenly sent me a letter calling me a murderer. Did something happen in the family?
>
From, Renod.Turan reopened the Arabion genealogy he had seen earlier to check.
Renod Nagin, Sirel Arabion, Meisa Arabion.
The three names were listed under the House Head, Badal Arabion, but the first two shared the same mother's name, 'Anietta Nagin.'
Now that I think about it, I believe I heard something like this from Asiz.
Recalling his memory, he remembered their first conversation about Meisa. The House Head had three children, and the eldest had been sent away for adoption because he manifested his mother's bloodline.
Meisa sent a letter to her half-brother calling him a murderer…
Turan read the letter over and over, etching it into his mind. He had no concrete evidence, but he had a gut feeling that the reason she was hostile toward her own family was contained within this.
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